Personal Leadership – It shines in difficult times

Jack was a “do-as-directed” professional. He used to tell his colleagues, “I am paid to do the work and my manager is paid to think about what I should be doing”. He would never own up anything more than his own tasks and would refrain from even thinking about the overall project. Times were good and he could survive working in that large IT company for 6 years with very average career growth.

Economy changed and company started cutting costs by laying off. Jack was a perfect candidate to be laid off. Post layoff, he was on his own. There was a vacuum around him with no one to tell him what to do. He had to own this situation if he had to survive. His personal leadership suddenly came to the fore. He thought, brainstormed, networked  and worked hard towards getting a new job in a different area. Layoff stirred him from within to initiate something and own it up. For the first time, he looked at getting a new job as his own responsibility. Sense of purpose took over him.

There are similar cases when people take entrepreneurship route, start an NGO or execute bright ideas after they are laid off or subjected to a difficult personal situation.

Personal leadership is within all of us but somehow organization’s bureaucratic structure kills/supresses it. Difficult times like these stir people from within and it is interesting to see how average people take charge of situation (in this case, their careers) and demonstrate personal leadership.

As we know by now that leadership is not about position, title or power. Leadership is a state of mind, it is about doing the right thing and realizing that the focus is on YOU.

Mini Saga: Accountability & Delegation

Joe was made responsible for getting proposal out to client. Joe blindly delegated it and instructed his team to send it to client once done. When proposal went to client, mistakes were found! When asked, Joe mentioned that he did not review the final outcome. Does accountability just mean delegating?

Note: A mini saga is a story in exactly 50 words (not 49, and not 51!). This mini-saga is derived from a real-life experience.

You can also read the other mini-saga “Knowledge and Action” that I wrote way back in 2006.

Being a Great Presenter

Lets accept it – doing a good presentation is difficult. You stick to your powerpoint slides and you fail to impress. You do it without a powerpoint and you might loose the track. You take more time than scheduled and you loose respect. You speak a little more on same topic and you sound repititive.

From the presentations I have done so far (to clients, prospects, peers, academic lectures etc.) I have learnt how to introduce right, set the stage, build perspectives, be interactive, generate audience interest, relate topics with real life examples, modulate voice for better effectiveness and more importantly – respect other’s time.

Seth Godin (who himself is a great presenter) lists down two most important elements of being a great presenter. He says -

The two elements of a great presenter

1. Respect (from the audience)
2. Love (to the audience)

There are no doubt important evolutionary reasons why this is true, but in my experience, every great presenter earns the respect of the audience (through her appearance, reputation, posture, voice, slides, introduction, etc.) and captures the attention of the audience by sending them love.

I think one of the ways to express your love to your audience is to be passionate while presenting. Usage of right voice tones and being expressive when presenting can go a long way in engaging the audience. Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech is one of the finest examples of how to speak with passion. His intensity in presentation was strong enough to bring tears in the eyes of audience.

Seth Godin further says -

When you create a presentation, think about what your status will be as you begin the presentation. What can you do to prewire, to earn more respect from the start? How can you be introduced? Lit? Miked? What can you wear? If your reputation doesn’t precede you, how do you earn it?

Don’t apologize at the beginning of the talk. For anything. Don’t hide in the dark. Don’t hide behind a wall of bullet points.

And then, as the talk (pitch/presentation/interview) begins, don’t focus your energy or concern on yourself. It’s not about you. It’s about them. The presenter who loves his audience the mosft, wins.

“Respect and Love” lesson from Seth is going to remain with me when I do my next presentation, hopefully, sometime soon!

An Informed Team Works Better

Last week, I wrote about importance of building perspectives for a manager when communicating with the team. Managers have to communicate a very clear picture of where things actually stand (on project, initiatives and overall organization). Specially in difficult times, people want to know what their manager is doing, what is the actual status of their projects, where are we headed to, what mistakes we did in recent past, how can we improve, what are the goals for next week, next month etc.  People are on a constant look out for information – information from which they can derive some meaning.

People indulge in guessing game when formal communication on facts is missing. With these guesses, people tend to assign wrong meaning to things and move farther from reality. This, in turn, tears down the team fabric.

A manager’s primary job is to ensure that people are fed with right information. It pains to see managers who believe in “assigning” work and “getting” outputs without giving broader picture, sharing facts and right information.

Jurgen Appelo over at his blog  has an insightful post title “Great Managers Have No Secrets” where he writes –

“When people lack good information, they will invent some information themselves. When they don’t know how well their project is doing, they will try to guess. When they don’t know how other teams are performing, they will make assumptions. When they don’t understand what their colleagues contribute to the organization, they will invent their own reasons. And when they don’t know about their manager’s personal life, they will gossip about it. To prevent bad information from flowing through the organization you have to give people good information.”

Further he writes –

“Managers should strive to have no secrets. In our organization I made sure that a lot of information is available for everyone. They all can see who is working on which projects, which features, bugs and issues are being handled, and what the team members’ evaluations are of those projects. Our people’s personal time sheets are public for all, and so are the ratings they give to indicate how happy they were with their projects.”

While all organizations/managers may not be willing to share employee ratings or deeper financial details, one thing is sure – people need to be informed by their managers about core issues that can potentially impact their work.

One of the best strategies to share information and feedback on a constant basis is to do a periodic “One-on-Ones” with all team members. Periodic team meetings and informal information sharing sessions are also equally effective.

People are meaning making machines. Provide them with right input and they will derive right meaning. Fail to do that and they start speculating.

Do you “Matter”?

You were born to lead.

Build a team.

Create community.

Guide an enterprise.

Inspire by example.

Have big shoulders.

Make those around you better.

Matter.

This was so inspiring that I did not feel like writing anything more. Hat Tip to Blog Post titled “Matter” at “The Business Brickyard” blog.

Perspective Building and 4 Ways to Improve Team Performance

For people working on projects (or any other initiative for that matter), how will they add value if they are assigned tasks without giving them a broader picture and perspective?

I was recently discussing this issue with some of the senior project managers and it came out that people will only think beyond their tasks (pro-activity) if they are equipped to do so. And they can only be equipped with perspective building and showing them the overall picture in which their work fits in. Communication (and over-communicating when it is needed) is one of the biggest challenges project managers are facing today.

My suggestion to them is:  Build perspective first, clarify the purpose and then assign task and see how people will start thinking pro-actively to carry out the task that exactly fits into the larger frame.

This has always worked for me.

Further, I read “4 Ways to Improve Team Performance” from Harvard Business Publishing’s “Management Tip of the Day”. Being an email subscriber to daily tip, I can have some profound wisdom delivered to my mailbox everyday. And I enjoy reading them thoroughly.

Here is today’s tip:

Managing your team’s performance is a challenge no matter what the environment. Take the extra time and effort to help your team succeed in what will likely be a tough year for all.

• Give your team much-needed perspective. Relieve pressure by encouraging them to have fun and remind them work is not the only thing in their lives.
• Spend time with all your team members, not just the stars. It’s easy to focus on A+ performers, but success relies on everyone doing his or her job well.
• When something doesn’t go as planned, acknowledge the setback and move on.
• Focus on team success. Celebrate what you have accomplished together, rather than individual achievements.

These are common-sensical but very crucial tips for managing people and helping them improve their performance.

Management tips were adapted from the article “Four Ways to Improve Your Team’s Performance” by Daisy Wademan Dowling at Harvard Business Blogs.

Have a Great Day!

P. S.: You might also like reading the earlier posts I wrote on similar topics:

• Being Assertive at Workplace
• High Impact Middle Management
• Learnings in People Management

Thanks Nicholas Bate

I am humbled to have been referred by Nicholas Bate – who is the author of 8 management books and a blog “Business of Life + Life of Business“.

He points to this blog by referring it as “A great management and leadership blog” – very inspiring. Blogging has given me so many great friends and this is another great addition to that list.

Thanks Nicholas.

I look forward to some great conversations via our blogs.

Importance of Professional Value and a Great Story About Charles Steinmetz

I wrote earlier about the explicit and tacit value that an individual brings to the organization. But how do you do value-addition?

According to me, one can add value to the organization by 1) Doing things the way they should be done and finding better ways of doing it 2) Solving critical business problems (technical or organizational)

In this regards, I re-read a great story about the importance of value over at Management Stories blog. I read this story long time back, but I reproduce it here because of its relevance in the current time.

Here it goes –

Charles Steinmetz was once called out of retirement by General Electric to help it locate a problem in an intricate system of complex machines. Having spent some time tinkering with and testing various parts of the system, he finally placed a chalk-marked ‘X’ on a small component in one machine. GE’s engineers promptly examined the component, and were amazed to find the defect in the precise location of Steinmetz’s mark.

Some time later, GE received an invoice from the wily engineer – for $10,000. Incredulous, they protested the bill and challenged him to itemize it. Steinmetz did so: “Making one chalk mark: $1,” he wrote. “Knowing where to place it: $9,999.”

GE paid the bill! Charles Steinmetz was a German-US Electrical Engineer who invented Alternate Current (AC) to initiate electrical era in the United States.

It is when you nurture a particular skill to such a level where you can fix a small component (problem) without losing the sight of the complex machine (organizational perspective) that you start generating exceptional value for the organization. That is my learning from this story.

Here are a few quotes from the same man who raised a huge bill for a seemingly trivial task!

• No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions.
• I have succeeded in getting my actual work down to thirty minutes a day. That leaves me eighteen hours for engineering. (Talks a ton about nurturing a skill).

Attributes of a Professional – Great List

I read a quote long back which said that a professionals do what’s necessary, even when they don’t feel like doing it. That was the best articulation of professionalism so far for me. But that’s just one.

Want to know 101 attributes of a real professional? Then jump on to Nicholas Bate’s blog title “Business of Life + Life of Business” to learn about 101 attributes of a professional. (Title of the post is “Professionalism101”)

The list is mind blowing and very comprehensive – and here are the attributes I liked the most (and the ones I could easily relate myself with)

A professional

• has a pen;
• Knows what’s important.
• He/she prefers I/we and owning an issue rather than he/she/they and blaming others.
• Thanks people; whether or not the person was just ‘doing their job’;
• Looks people in the eye and speaks clearly, rather than mutter from the depths of their laptop.
• Doesn’t check their phone in the middle of your conversation.
• Leads through skill, competence and attitude not (solely) job title.
• Listens to understand not just to be polite.
• Doesn’t use ‘everybody’ does it’ as an excuse.
• Reads deep;
• Reads wide;
• Knows that leadership is a mindset.
• Its very easy to attack/destroy-
• Much harder to build, augment, be a help and think abundant
• Says sorry;
• Says how can I help you?
• Knows it takes years to achieve over-night success;
• Is inspired by all kinds of sources;

Read the full list here.

10 Personal Commandments for Management & Leadership

Most of my thinking on management/leadership is reflected in different posts of this blog. It was when I read a post on Don Fred’s blog “Lead Quietly” that I was inspired to frame 10 personal commandments of management/leadership. I have written separate posts on each one of these earlier and I continue to believe strongly in these commandments.

1. Serve people well – core job of a leader is to serve the people.
2. Respect people all the time. Be good to them. Goodness at workplace works!
3. Be a good communicator. Being a manager/leader means being a good communicator.
4. Keep promises and be authentic.
5. Endeavor to deliver value in each interaction. Leave people slightly better than what they were before the interaction.
6. Focus on strengths of people, not weaknesses.
7. When it comes to people, set goals for them and then set them free. Initiative comes with independence.
8. Be thankful for small things, never miss an opportunity to appreciate efforts.
9. Remain adaptable to changing business needs.
10. Don’t expect the team to do anything that I can’t do. Set right example.

In time to come, I will stick to these commandments and become a better leader and person in the process. I am sure, as I gather more experience, there would be many additions to this list but for now, I stick to these!

Do you have a personal set of commandments for doing your job? If so, I invite you to share them here in comments section – I can guarantee that it would be very stimulating to think about these.

Come forward, give it a try!